


Beneath the Skin

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Self Harm, TW: Self Harm, TW: suicidal thoughts, tw: self harm urges
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-03
Updated: 2013-01-03
Packaged: 2017-11-23 11:35:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/621693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam knows there's no happily ever after, but she wishes she could stop screwing herself up, for once.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beneath the Skin

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: explicit stuff about self harm and self destructive behavior. This is from personal experience, and i just had to get it out, yknow. If you ever need help, you can go to rahleighbecket.tumblr.com; there's a help page on the sidebar. and there are many more resources available to get you the help you deserve. Thank you for reading.

Sam is sick of blood. The thick red that trails down her knuckles and stains their clothes, and monster blood, too. Bright ichor and goo of all kinds that stay when the bodies burn, and especially demon blood.

She was always too fascinated with it, and that fueled the addiction. Though she's...clean, she still wants to see blood, and that scares her, because it makes her fight even harder against monsters, but it also makes her hurt herself.

She bites the corners of her mouth, picks at them until it hurts when she smiles. It burns, and it makes her grit her teeth, but she finds herself having to hold back from picking at her mouth more. Most of all, she wants to take a knife to her wrists, but she is scared and knows that Dean will see the cuts.

No matter how much she cries, and tries to calm down when she can't breathe, she always fucks up and bites and chews her cuticles and her mouth and can't stop because Dean is asleep and she wants that burn.

She hates it, she hates herself and she knows it's self destructive but she doesn't know what to do. They don't have a doctor for her kind of damage, they really can't, and who is there to stop her, when Dean doesn't notice the scabs and fingernail marks where she held herself tightly, hoping to crush the urge to hurt herself.

Castiel does not come at night, so he does not see her twist the sheets in anger and pray for sleep, but he starts noticing the tiny wounds she gives herself. The ones on her mouth or her hands that make her want to scream when she sees them.

And one day, when Dean is working on the car in the early morning, her and Cas are sitting side by side in front of some cartoon with a bowl of cocoa puffs in her lap, and he touches her hand. She flinches slightly, because it hurts, she never lets it heal enough to stop her from digging at it more.

"What happened?" He asks, and she doesn't know what to say, so she shrugs but her face betrays her. She unconsciously bites slightly at the inside of her cheek, and he sees that, too. He holds her hand for a while, and she likes the sensation of being touched there, because nobody had ever touched her wounds but herself.

The morning goes by without her wanting pain. 

Just a few days later, Dean is getting some wolfsbane, and she must have looked as bad as she felt because he bought her some candy and grinned at her before he left. 

She's looked up resources, she's always teased for how much she researches. She buys cheap plastic bracelets with butterflies on them, and they work something like magic, in that she believes so hard that they work, a bit. But it doesn't cure anything. 

She puts ice on her wounds and it relieves the burning, but she kills leviathan and hates herself for staring too long at the black blood, for wanting to touch the blood coming from her stomach where it wounded her.

Cas drops by, one night. Dean is finishing off a kelpie because he wounded it and she stood paralyzed with fear as its blood spurted out. In her distraction it was too late to block it from kicking her, so she is alone in the motel room with a few cracked ribs and she feels panic and silence encase her whenever she stops itching and scratching at her hands.

He frowns because he finds her right in the middle of running her tongue over her bloody, chewed lower lip.

He doesn't say anything, but he sits on the bed with her, damn angel, and he looks at her, so she makes her hands lie still on the bed and forces her mouth into a small smile. 

She wants to kiss him but her lips hurt and she wants even more to sleep. She wants to fuck him but getting attached always ends badly for her so why even try. 

He says nothing. He holds her hand and occasionally touches her lips softly, soothing any deathwish inside her for a while. He traces her wrists with his hands and it's like he knows, and she would cry if she could because an angel is touching her like he doesn't care that she's bloody and broken. 

She kisses him once and he kisses her back, plays with her hair and tells her "I don't like it when you hurt yourself." She nods and his hands keep her breathing slow, in and out. "I'm trying," she says and now she's really crying.

He stays with her the whole night and she falls asleep in his arms, and she doesn't see Dean's face when he comes back. It crumples with relief, because he didn't know what was wrong, and he worried so much, but it looks like Cas can help. 

"Fuckin' angels," he mutters as he slides into bed, a hopeful grin on his face.

Sam has come all this way, so she doesn't think for a second that she will give up. 

But her wounds start healing and god, she wants to open them more. But she stares in the mirror and does her best at breathing. 

And when she starts wanting to hurt herself she goes to Dean, who hugs her tight and tells her it'll be okay. She talks anyone about how bad she gets. 

Hell, once on a solo hunt a witch saw her rubbing her wrists, and she cried into that damn stranger's shoulder for half the night. ("Be safe," they had told in goodbye, pressing a protection charm into her hand)

Talking helps in so many ways. She goes to Cas, who kisses her and tells her that she can do this.

And she can.


End file.
